Poll Technica: Where should we go when Google Reader is put out to pasture?

"What about...?" Hrm, Google was behind more RSS than we realized.

Google's latest "spring cleaning" may be the company's most heartbreaking since Google Wave. Google Reader, the RSS reader of the masses, will shut down on July 1.

A surprising number of Ars staffers still use Google Reader, so the conversation in the Orbital HQ immediately turned to alternatives. "Oh, what about FeedDemon?" Errr, the service depends on Google Reader. "What about Reeder for iOS?" Same story. My personal alternative, NetNewsWire... ugh.

But when in doubt, Ars can always do what others can't—turn to our collective reader braintrust. So our latest Poll Technica is an obvious one: in light of today's announcement, where are you turning for all your RSS needs?

336 Reader Comments

I don't really get the RSS hate. How in the world do you keep track of new posts on news sites/blogs you like to read? Unless you read something on the order of five blogs. Surely people aren't relying on bookmarks for this.

Guess I'll be among the masses who figure something out to replace this. It really ticks me off when Google does this. They should just open source the code so people can get similar functionality elsewhere.

Bummer, i've been using Reader since it was first release and check it everyday.NewsBlur showed nothing but errors on the first five feeds I clicked in their example. GoodNoows.com is a good one so far, and I like the tiled layout for stories. Reading the story is a bit cumbersome though as it appears in an overlay. I will give them a try for a week and see.

I don't really get the RSS hate. How in the world do you keep track of new posts on news sites/blogs you like to read? Unless you read something on the order of five blogs. Surely people aren't relying on bookmarks for this.

No, "people" get their "news" by seeing what's trending on Twitter. A cesspool of 140-character banality and someday-going-to-rot link shorteners. You didn't think civilization could fall any further, did you?

Is there something that isn't an application? I don't want another program to download just to check something that's going to ultimately take me to a website. I use Google Reader because it's in my browser, where all the RSS data will come from and eventually go.

What else can provide regular updates from *any* web based source, in a text-and-images format? Hell, I've never once even gone to Ars Technica directly via bookmark or url, I've always read via RSS and followed links from the RSS when I wanted to comment, and I've been around a while.

Twitter? Most things I'm interested in don't have twitter accounts, and twitter is limited to 140 characters and spammed with crap. I'm not interested in "How are you today?"

Google+? I love G+, actually, but again it's limited to sources with G+ profiles. I can't just add random blogs.

Is there something that isn't an application? I don't want another program to download just to check something that's going to ultimately take me to a website. I use Google Reader because it's in my browser, where all the RSS data will come from and eventually go.

NewsBlur is a website, and functions similar to Google Reader. It also has iOS and Android apps if you want to check your feeds on the go.

I've been using an iOS app called NewsRack for years now. It's not quite as nice as the top end apps but it can manage its own feeds or use Google's api. Feeling pretty smug now that all those others apps are about to be completely dead in the water.

I should clarify - I've long used Reader because it's open API means setting up my sources in Reader worked immensely well allowing me to seamlessly read my news on a variety of different devices and OS's, with entirely different clients (Google Reader on my desktop, Byline on my old iPhone, Newsrob on my iPhone) always knowing that I could ditch an app and get a new one effortlessly, with no configuration beyond my google id.

Everything Just Worked, and I never needed to worry at all about incompatible news sources or whatever else.

Is there something that isn't an application? I don't want another program to download just to check something that's going to ultimately take me to a website. I use Google Reader because it's in my browser, where all the RSS data will come from and eventually go.

First story to show up in my RSS. SHOCKED! Is March 13th April Fools?!

Reader, Gmail & Search are the only Google services I use with any regularity.

I sync NetNewsWire with Reader. BEFORE THAT (long ago) I used Shrook, which had it's own paid syncing service. I switched to NetNewsWire when I wanted syncing, and customized it to look like my Shrook layout. I love NNWire, so I would wait to see how they choose to handle sync before runing off in a crazed frenzy.

I don't really get the RSS hate. How in the world do you keep track of new posts on news sites/blogs you like to read? Unless you read something on the order of five blogs. Surely people aren't relying on bookmarks for this.

Eh. I only have a dozen or so feeds to keep track of, so Firefox's live bookmarks are more than good enough. (I keep 'em in a folder on the bookmark toolbar to save space while still having easy access - I might have more, but screw the sites using FeedProxy and/or tacking on a crapton of identifiers on the URL when you go through the RSS'd link. Those obviously aren't worth my time.)

I see a lot of RSS hating but it still has its place. After the last google Spring cleaning I realised that Reader was next and went looking for a replacement. I found http://feedafever.com/ a self hosted RSS aggregator and it has easily been the best $30 bucks I spent. One of the other important pieces is that you can transfer your google lists to Fever and just pick up where you left off. The other benefit is since this is not Google it will run as long as your web server does.